The present invention is directed to combinatorial techniques for characterizing materials, and more particularly to a parallel screen for determining the thermal characteristics of materials by monitoring changes in radiation intensity from members of a combinatorial library as a function of temperature.
In discovering new materials, the temperature of a material phase change (e.g. melting point) provides important information regarding a particular material. One possible approach for determining such temperatures is to measure the difference between the temperature of the unknown member and a reference member, as in differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and differential thermal analysis (DTA). Another approach is to monitor changes in the reflectivity or emissivity of the unknown member as a function of temperature. Currently, there is a need for a rapid, high throughput screen that can determine the thermal characteristics of members of a combinatorial library over a large temperature range.
Accordingly, the invention applies combinatorial materials science techniques in a high-throughput screen for measuring the phase change temperatures of combinatorial libraries of materials. Generally, the invention is directed to correlating the intensity of the radiation emitting from a member with its temperature to obtain its thermal characteristics, and more particularly to correlating the radiation intensity of each member versus time and correlating the temperature of each member versus time to link the member""s radiation intensity with its temperature. The invention may include using a detector, such as an infrared camera, to measure the phase change temperature (e.g. melting point) of a plurality of materials on a substrate by, for example, monitoring changes in the radiation, such as the reflectance or emissivity, of a member. In one embodiment, the infrared camera compares the radiation from a substrate to the radiation from a member as a function of temperature. The phase change temperature of the member is obtained by monitoring changes in the ratio between the two radiations as a function of temperature.